UNICEF: Israel killed 500 children in Gaza

UNICEF stressed that children in Gaza are experiencing difficult living conditions. They make up around half of Gaza's population, 1.8million. UNICEF said that the Israeli occupation has destroyed the houses of more than 50,000 children.

UNICEF has said that the Israeli occupation killed around 500 Palestinian children during the war on the Gaza Strip and wounded around 3,000 others.

Chief of UNICEF's Gaza Field Office Pernille Ironside said that 469 children were killed. The number is expected to rise.

She described the effects and damage of the Israeli war on the Palestinian children as "bad," noting that nine children were killed in the last 48 hours.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health announced a higher number. They said that 560 children were killed and 11,000 wounded.

Meanwhile, three children were killed on Thursday in Al-Nafaq Street in the north-east of the Gaza Strip. Several international organisations said that targeting children during the war mounts to war crimes and perpetrators must be held account for them.

UNICEF stressed that children in Gaza are experiencing difficult living conditions. They make up around half of Gaza's population, 1.8million. UNICEF said that the Israeli occupation has destroyed the houses of more than 50,000 children.

Source : https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/middle-east/13680-unicef-israel-killed-500-children-in-gaza

Human Rights Watch accuses Israel of war crimes in Gaza

Classroom of UNRWA school Beit Hanoun

(Reuters) - Human Rights Watch accused Israel of committing war crimes by attacking three U.N.-run schools in the Gaza Strip in fighting in July and August, killing Palestinian civilians who had sheltered there.

The New York-based group issued a report on Thursday that it described as the first in-depth documentation of the incidents, which took place during a 50-day conflict between Israel and Palestinian militants that ended in a ceasefire on Aug. 26.

"Three Israeli attacks that damaged Gaza schools housing displaced people caused numerous civilian casualties in violation of the laws of war," it said in the report, based on interviews with witnesses and field research in the Hamas Islamist-dominated enclave.

A Palestinian man carries a child, wounded in an Israeli strike on a compound housing a U.N. school in Beit Hanoun, in the northern Gaza Strip

Israeli government and military spokesmen declined immediate comment. But during the Gaza fighting, Israel rejected preliminary Human Rights Watch findings it committed war crimes and said the group should focus on Hamas putting Palestinian civilians in harm's way by using residential areas as launching points for attacks and for weapons storage.

On Thursday, Human Rights Watch also said it was sceptical about the credibility of five criminal investigations announced by Israel's military on Wednesday into its Gaza war operations.

The organisation said 45 people, including 17 children, were killed in or near the "well-marked schools" in the strikes on July 24 in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun, on July 30 in Jabalya refugee camp and on Aug. 3 in Rafah, in the south of the enclave.

Children injured during a strike on a compound housing the U.N. Beit Hanoun school in Gaza.(AP/Lefteris Pitarakis) 

It said its inspection of the Beit Hanoun site and photographs of munitions remnants suggested Israel fired mortars at the school, killing 13 people.

The Israeli military said at the time the school was hit by errant fire and the area around the facility had been used by Palestinian fighters to launch rockets.

In the Jabalya attack, Human Rights Watch said, Israeli artillery shells killed 20 people at the school. The military said its troops had come under mortar fire from fighters in the vicinity of the building and had shot back.

Twelve people were killed at the school in Rafah, Human Rights Watch said, and an impact crater and fragments "strongly suggested" a Spike missile had been fired by an Israeli aircraft. The military said shortly after the incident that it had targeted three militants on a motorcycle near the school.

More than 2,100 Palestinians, most of them civilians, were killed in seven weeks of fighting, according to the Gaza health ministry. Sixty-seven Israeli soldiers and six civilians in Israel were killed.

(Writing by Jeffrey Heller; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)

http://stateofblood.blogspot.com/2014/09/zionist-totalitarian-control-of-us.html

A witness who arrived at the Kamal Adwan hospital after the attack told Al Jazeera: “We were sitting in the school, because we were told it is safe. “By God, there was not a single fighter, not a single shot was fired from the school. Why did they shoot at the school?  Why? Can someone explain that to me?  Why would they shell the school?”

Source : http://beforeitsnews.com/alternative/2014/07/u-n-school-where-hundreds-of-palestinians-sought-protective-shelter-shelled-2999264.html

http://stateofblood.blogspot.com/2014/08/gaza-massacre-2014.html

MEPs call for EU-Israel trade agreement to be suspended

Portuguese MEP, Marisa Matias said that suspending the association agreement with Israel is not a sufficient step, stressing on the need to apply an arms embargo and start working on a full ban of Israeli products produced in the occupied territories

Members of the European Parliament (MEP) yesterday called to hold Israel accountable for its war in the Gaza Strip and to suspend the EU-Israel association agreement, the Anadolunews agency reported.

In a statement, the MEPs declared, "Israel's direct targeting of civilians and its reckless cause of civilian deaths is a clear breach of international human rights law."

Member of the Unitarian Left (GUE/NGL) parliamentary group, Martina Anderson said: "You cannot go on with an agreement after you have broken it."

The European Union condemns the establishment of illegal settlements on the Palestinian territories occupied in 1967 and considers it a violation of international law, but the association agreement with Israel is still valid.

Anderson stressed the Palestinians' right to sovereignty, freedom and to live with dignity and respect and that they, as parliamentarians, should take responsibility otherwise they will become "partners in crime".

Portuguese MEP, Marisa Matias said that suspending the association agreement with Israel is not a sufficient step, stressing on the need to apply an arms embargo and start working on a full ban of Israeli products produced in the occupied territories.

Source : https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/europe/14040-meps-call-for-eu-israel-trade-agreement-to-be-suspended

Gaza beach massacre commemorated by child survivors

Young relatives of four children killed by Israeli shelling while playing football on a beach in July play their game that was violently cut short, 7 September.

 (Joe Catron)

On Sunday evening, as the sun slipped behind the Mediterranean Sea, members of the Bakr family, a sprawling clan of fishermen in Gaza City’s Beach refugee camp, gathered with hundreds of supporters on the beach next to the Gaza seaport.

Their assembly commemorated the lives of nine-year-old Ismail Muhammad Subhi Bakr, ten-year-old Ahed Atef Ahed Bakr, ten-year-old Zakariya Ahed Subhi Bakr and eleven-year-old Muhammad Ramez Ezzat Bakr.

four-children-killed-in-gaza-airstrikes

All four were killed in Israeli strikes as they played football on the beach on 16 July. The first blast killed Ismail as he ran to retrieve a ball. Ahed, Zakariya and Muhammad died in the second explosion.

Medics hold the dead body of a severely injured young boy at the al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza, Palestine

Medics hold the dead body of a severely injured young boy at the al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza, Palestine.
Source : http://www.demotix.com/news/5279564/palestine-mourns-death-4-children-killed-israeli-attack-beach#media-5279493

The Israeli munitions that ended their lives struck the beach directly behind a row of hotels which, in mid-July, housed many of the foreign reporters then present in Gaza.

Along with statements by members of their family and the painting of colorful murals at the site of the boys’ killings, the event also included a football match, intended to complete the one interrupted by the lethal blasts almost two months ago.

“It was never finished,” Bayan al-Zumaili of the Safadi Group, the youth organization that worked with the Bakr family to organize the event, told The Electronic Intifada. “So we decided to complete it with the survivors of the massacre.”

Al-Zumaili, a physician who graduated from the Islamic University of Gaza’s medical school two months ago, volunteered in the surgical department at al-Shifa hospital during Israel’s 51-day offensive against the Gaza Strip, which ended in an indefinite ceasefire on 26 August.

Witnessed by journalists

By 25 August, Israeli attacks had killed at least at least 2,168 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, including 521 children, according to Gaza’s al-Mezan Center for Human Rights.

The number of child fatalities has risen to at least 523 with the deaths of Ziyad al-Reefi, age nine, on 1 September, and Rahfat Abu Jame, age five, on Tuesday. Both died of injuries from Israeli attacks.

The killings of the Bakr boys in July drew broad attention not only because a single incident caused the deaths of four young relatives — a scenario repeated numerous times throughout the onslaught — but also because it took place so near to where so many journalists were staying.

Eyewitness accounts of the massacre by journalists like Sara Hussein of AFP, Peter Beaumont of The Guardian, Tyler Hicks of The New York Times, and William Booth ofThe Washington Post reached much larger audiences than first-hand reports of similar mass killings elsewhere.

on Twitter

NBC briefly pulled from the Gaza Strip its correspondent Ayman Mohyeldin, who tweeted: “Minutes before they were killed by our hotel, I was kicking a ball with them.” NBC’s removal of their star foreign correspondent was attributed by many to his blunt coverage of Palestinian deaths on social media and was widely criticized by other journalists.

While many reporters witnessed the killings, some also helped evacuated three survivors from the beach and gave them first aid inside al-Deira hotel.

“They targeted us knowing that we were children, playing a game of football on the beach,” one survivor of Israel’s missile strikes, eleven-year-old Motasem Bakr, said Sunday. “The [armed] resistance was on the frontiers fighting them, not here playing football.”

“An Israeli officer did not like the idea of children playing,” he added.

In place of the martyrs

According to Defence for Children International - Palestine, Ismail, Ahed, Zakariya and Muhammad were pronounced dead upon their arrival at al-Shifa hospital.

“Israeli forces continue to target and kill children and civilians on a daily basis, making Israeli military statements claiming that these deaths are tragic mistakes simply meaningless,” DCI-Palestine executive director Rifat Kassis said in a statement the next day. “The death toll among children now stands at its highest point in five years.”

Along with two other survivors of the attack, Motasem joined three other boys from the Bakr family and six others from the devastated Shujaiya neighborhood, on the eastern edge of Gaza City, to complete the football match they had never finished on 16 July.

“In the place of the martyrs who couldn’t attend, we brought survivors of the Shujaiya massacre to complete the match for them,” al-Zumaili said.

Dozens of Palestinians died over the course of days of Israeli shelling, airstrikes,and gunfire in Shujaiya in mid-July. The bombings reduced much of the neighborhood to rubble.

Since the 26 August ceasefire, hard-hit areas like Shujaiya, Beit Hanoun and Khuzaa have at times resembled army encampments; their streets thick with tents erected by grieving families to host mourners and those offering their condolences.

The body of one of four children from the Bakr family who were killed by Israeli forces while playing on a Gaza City beach is carried during the children’s funeral on 16 July.

 (Mohammed Asad / APA images)

As families mourn their losses, and injured Palestinians succumb to their injuries, Gaza’s ongoing process of collective grieving will also continue, sometimes in the somber reflection of mourning tents, sometimes in the simple joy of an evening football match on the beach.

Joe Catron is a US activist in Gaza, Palestine. He co-edited The Prisoners’ Diaries: Palestinian Voices from the Israeli Gulag, an anthology of accounts by detainees freed in the 2011 prisoner exchange. Follow him on Twitter: @jncatron.

Source: http://electronicintifada.net/content/gaza-beach-massacre-commemorated-child-survivors/13844

Four Fishermen Kidnapped In Northern Gaza Waters

 Tuesday September 09, 2014 10:56 by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC & Agencies 

Israeli navy boats attacked on Tuesday, at dawn, Palestinian fishing boats in the Sudaniyya Sea, near Beit Lahia, in the northern part of the Gaza Strip, and kidnapped four fishermen.

Fishing Boats Attacked By The Israeli Navy - File, felesteen.ps

The Maan News Agency has reported that the fishermen, all members of the Sultan family, have been kidnapped by the navy, and were taken to an unknown destination. The Israeli attack also caused property damage to a number of boats.

The attack is yet another Israeli violation to the cease-fire agreement, as the navy kidnapped two fishermen in the area a week ago, while the navy also attacked fishing boats four times, since the cease-fire deal was reached on August 26.

The fishermen are supposed to be allowed to fish within six nautical miles off the Gaza shore, but the navy continued to attack, and open fire, at Palestinian boats in Gaza waters in northern and southern Gaza.

Israel Limits Gaza Fishing Zone Again, Violates Ceasefire Agreement For 3rd Time
http://imemc.org/article/69067

Army incursions into Madama

in Journals, Nablus September 9, 2014

9th September 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus team | Madama, Occupied Palestine

We arrived in Madama yesterday, 8th September; in the early afternoon after we were told that during the night Israeli army invaded this village, and the nearby villages of Burin and Asira Al Qibliya.

Our contact told us that the main road leading to Nablus was blocked during the night and that a car coming from Asira was prevented from reaching the hospital. Furthermore, a checkpoint was erected at the main entrance of the village; cars and pedestrians were searched until it was removed around 11am.

When we reached Madama, we saw a group of seven soldiers standing on the road beside the Mosque, blocking it with two military jeeps and one personnel carrier. More soldiers were inside the vehicles while those outside positioned themselves facing in different directions and keeping an eye on the surrounding streets, shops and houses.

The school had just finished and groups of children were filling the street and hanging around looking at the unwanted ‘guests’.

We decided to stay and see what was going on and take some pictures. We did this for about 10 minutes, before we attracted soldiers’ attention. Several of them came towards us asking what we were doing in the village, demanding that we hand over our camera.  We argued that we had a right to take pictures and that they did not have a right to take our camera, but they insisted that we could not take pictures of individual soldiers and in particular, the close-ups of their faces.

We used this opportunity to pose a question, “If what you are doing is right, why do you hide your faces?”

They refused to answer and instead, they gave us an ultimatum that we delete the pictures or they would take us to the police station to be arrested. They also promised us trouble by the immigration authorities when leaving the country. Eventually we decided to delete some of our photos.

Later we met a group of villagers and spoke about the situation in Madama.

“Every night we have problems with the Israeli army and every family here has been at the receiving end. Only during the attack on Gaza they left us alone, probably because they had less soldiers available here,” one of them said.

He continued to state that the army regularly enters houses in the middle of the night to search them. They do it after throwing the residents out and making them wait for hours, before they can return. In one such raid the soldiers stole 180,000 shekels from a house, claiming they did it because the money was going to Hamas. In fact that was the lifesavings of the man who worked for 20 years and received a payout after finishing his job.

The soldiers usually block Madama by closing the entrance at the main road connecting it to Burin and Asira Al Qibliya, and also closing the settler road located up the hill at the top of the village, connecting illegal settlements of Qedumim and Ytzhar with the main road leading to Nablus and the South.

“When you try to pass through, the soldiers often shout at you, ‘Go away!’ But who should go away? This is my village, my land!’” Said another Madama resident.

When we asked for the reasons why soldiers target the village, he replied, “They usually say that someone had thrown stones at them previously and I don’t really know if that is true. This morning after removing the checkpoint around 11 o’clock, they came inside the village and started taking pictures of the old houses. This makes no sense to us, we have no idea why they are doing this, and we are very worried.”

Israeli soldiers come very often to the village when the school finishes to provoke the children. “Soon this is going to be even a bigger problem. In November maintenance work starts in the boys’ school, and for about three months, boys will attend the girls’ school between 2pm and 7pm, which is very near the settlers’ road. The army is always present, we are really worried for our boys…”

Source : http://palsolidarity.org/2014/09/army-incursions-into-madama/

Watch: Israeli soldiers arrest 2 young boys in Silwad

RAMALLAH (Ma'an) -- Israeli forces Monday afternoon (08 September 2014) arrested two young Palestinian boys while they were playing in the courtyard of their house in Silwad in the central West Bank, family members told Ma'an.

A relative identified the children as seven-year-old Abd al-Fattah Abd al-Ghani Teima Hammad and eight-year-old Ramzi Ahmad Meri.

The kids were playing when three Israeli soldiers broke into the courtyard and took them to a military base near the town, the relative said, requesting anonymity.

He said there were no clashes taking place in the area prior to the arrests.

When the children's mothers went to the military base to check on their children, Israeli troops fired tear gas at them, the relative told Ma'an.

He said the kids were released a few hours later, after the Palestinian military liaison department intervened.

A Ma'an reporter uploaded to Youtube footage from a surveillance camera in the area that appears to show two small children being arrested by Israeli soldiers.


An Israeli army spokeswoman said she was looking into the incident.
Over the past decade, Israeli forces have arrested, interrogated and prosecuted around 7,000 children between 12 and 17, mostly boys, according to a 2013 report by the UN Children's Fund.

The rate of child arrests is equivalent to "an average of two children each day," the UNICEF report says.